In mid-October, I returned to Mana Pools after a break of about 18 years. I went on a Wild-Eye photographic safari led by Marlon Du Toit. We spent a wonderful five nights and days  camped along side the Zambezi river. Our hosts were old friends, Dave MacFarland and Tess Arkwright, who operate Mwinilunga Safaris. It was wonderful and heartwarming to reacquaint with hospitable friends last seen many years ago.

“There is a magic, a poignancy, a sense of excitement about the bush that is not only gripping, it is addictive. Once bitten by the ‘bush bug’ a person is infected for life. Bush fever is a kind of madness that compels you to return and return – a longing which will seize you by the throat until, you would gladly sell soul for the sight of a dry thorn tree against an empty sky, a herd of wildebeest wheeling under their cloud of dust, or the deep rasping “augh!” of a lion prowling in the night. The veld has a scent all of its own too, a combination of dust and dung and sunshine, a heady fragrance that fills the lungs and intoxicates the blood like strong wine.”

~C.Emily-Dibb

I had very mixed feelings about going back to Zimbabwe because of what has been done and continues to be done to that country and her people. I had been looking at the wonderful images being blogged by visitors who had visited Mana Pools  and the tug on my heart-strings had been growing. I am very pleased I went back and I will go back again to see special places like Mana and spend time with wonderful people like Dave and Tess.

I first visited Mana Pools around 1963 or 1964 when my Dad built the steel structure for the first treetop lodge in Mana for a European investor. My memories remain of vast herds of buffalo which you could see in advance because of the huge dust cloud they stirred up, black rhino (sadly none exist here now) and Honey Badgers at the foot of the treetop lodge stairs. The bush is drier than I remembered it, but it was early spring so it is  seasonally dry at that time.

The charter flight from Harare to Mana takes about one and a half hours. You know you are getting close when you pass over the rugged escarpment and onto the flat flood plain with its large snaking rivers of sand and areas of thick Jesse. The feeling of flying into the dirt runway at Mana was indescribable. Floods of nostalgia mixed with great anticipation stirred many of the old feelings. Dave and Tess’s Mwinilunga Safari camp was perfect. It is located on the bank of the Zambesi in the Trichilia area.  The tented camp was positioned under a grove of large Natal Mahogany trees which have a thick canopy of dark green leaves providing wonderful shade in a very hot environment. I remember that October was always considered “suicide month” in the Zambezi valley because of the heat. It was hot, 40 degrees centigrade in the shade. I do not have a problem with the heat as I always associate it with holidays.

The Cape Hunting or painted dogs or just wild dogs, for short, had not been seen for the previous ten days but returned to the Trichilia area the day we arrived – serendipity.  We found them down next to the river in the late afternoon. I am not sure but the pack was about 12 dogs strong.

The wild dogs went down to the Zambesi for a drink. These wild dogs seemed to be well aware of the dangers which lurk beneath the surface of the water.

After much peering at the water they started to drink, but always with one or two individuals standing guard.

A silhouette of two adult wild dogs with one of the islands in the Zambesi in the background. It was hot so the dogs took every opportunity to stand in the shade.

The Zambezi river is one of Africa’s main rivers and forms the northern border between Zimbabwe and its neighbours from Victoria Falls to Kanyemba. In the late afternoon the waters  sparkle, the  banks display a verdant green and the distant hills are painted with soft hazy blues.

“Time is a flowing river. Happy are those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment.”
~ Christopher Darlington Morley

This wild dog was looking down towards the water’s edge just in front of our camp, probably looking at a hippo or crocodile. The Trichilia island was on the other side of a channel.

A view of the channel adjacent to the Trichilia island framed by the dark green leaves of the Natal Mahogany tree.

Full frontal with a large and  inquisitive bull elephant. The older bulls seem more relaxed. It is the younger bulls which are more mischievous with something to prove.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.”

~Mahatma Gandhi

The next image was taken close to our camp, standing in the shade of the Natal Mahoganies. The Trichilia Emetica or commonly named Natal Mahogany is an evergreen, large tree, which grows as high as 25 metres, with separate male and female plants. This tree creates a thick canopy of dark glossy green leaves. This was the view looking through a part of the Trichilia grove north across the Zambesi toward Zambia.

On our first afternoon we did not go far because we chose to stay with the wild dogs and walked with them for about half a kilometer inland. They decided to rest in the shade as it was very hot. This young bull elephant was wandering towards the river and his path took him close to the wild dogs. Being young and mischievous he chased a few wild dogs out of his way.

The mood of the bush changes significantly when the bright sunshine is hidden by cloud. This image was taken in the late afternoon while the sun was shielded by cloud and a few shafts of light were beaming from beneath the thick cumulus clouds.

After being disturbed by the young bull elephant, the wild dog pack moved back closer to the river as the sun started to sink. In the late afternoon, the dust stirred up as the wild dogs were walking turned into a golden glow around their feet.

“When you’ve acquired a taste for dust,
The scent of our first rain,
You’re hooked for life on Africa
And you’ll not be right again
Till you can watch the setting moon
And hear the jackals bark
And know that they’re around you,
Waiting in the dark.”

~C. Emily Dibb

The sun had sunk to just above the distant hills and below the tree line. The colours at this time of the day were vivid. It is also a time of peace. The intense heat of the day was cooling and few of the wild dogs were catching up on some rest while others kept vigil.

These wild dogs were in lion, hyaena and leopard turf and the sun was setting so they needed to be on guard as the night shift was probably starting to stir.

Looking in the opposite direction towards the setting sun. The colours were saturated, the intense heat was easing and the bush was still, as it is when the day gives way to night. It is almost as if time is suspended. The dogs were resting and for a brief period there was peace and serenity. 

On our first afternoon in Mana, we spent some time on foot with the wild dogs, which was a treat and privilege. The feeling of being back in a special part of one of the wild places of Africa which, for me, is steeped in memories was wonderful. It is interesting how you put things into the background as life moves on and you have to, but there is something about this place which floods your senses, illuminates your imagination and reignites those long-held memories.

“When you long to see the elephants.
Or to hear the coucal’s song,
When the moonrise sets your blood on fire,
You’ve been away too long
It’s time to cut the traces loose
And let your heart go free
Beyond that far horizon,
Where your spirit yearns to be.”

~C. Emily Dibb

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This the last post from a recent visit to Mashatu in mid-July.

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
~ Joseph Campbell

The sunrises in mid-winter in Mashatu are crisp and colourful. The sky was infused with dusty pinks and oranges and the blonde grass looked luminescient at dawn. The birds were heralding the new day but for the rest, the the bush is still.

As the sun begins to seep into the gullies and valleys the light seems to bring the bush to life.  A small family herd of zebra cantered away from us into the mopani scrub. Most of these mopanis do not get a chance to develop into trees as the elephant trim them.

Later in the day, we found this mixed herd of zebras in the foreground and kudu in the background. Unlike predators, herbivores are much more tolerant of each other. Probably because they do not compete for food sources. The zebra graze select parts of the grasses while the kudu browse on bushes and trees.

“In nature nothing exists alone.”
~ Rachel Carson

The mornings in Mashatu provide some interesting lighting. This young Impala ram in the Majale river bed was walking across a particularly rocky bed and surprisingly his underside was being lit by the glare from the rocks..

This next image is not a good photograph, but is interesting. I never knew that an Impala ram actually climbed on top of the female to mate. This male actually launched himself off the ground and grabbed on to the female with his forelegs ticked behind her hind legs. I never knew they did that as most antelope mate with the male’s hind legs firmly planted on the ground while mounting the female. Needless to say a young ram was taking lessons..

We did not see any wild pig this trip though they thrive in Mashatu but are nocturnal and very ellusive. The warthog, or “howarts” as we nicknamed them, are ubiquitious and are not shy.

A black and white of image of one of the large warthog males we saw. Those tusks are formidable weapons which have damaged many a lion.

Kudu are plentiful in Mashatu and seem to cope better than the grazers in the dry winters as they are browsers. The youngsters are danity and delicate with distinctive white stripes on their torsos.

We found three Kudu bulls wandering through the bush and occasionally stopping to browse. The one in the foreground must have been bitten by something and was desperately trying to reach back to lick the sensitive area. It is surprising how flexible these big bulls are!

We came across many Steenbok in Mashatu. They are small brown antelope just a bit bigger than a duiker. If their food sources are abundant, Steenbok may pair up for life, but in most cases these antelope are solitary creatures only coming together when they need to mate. This male was “checking out” a female to see if she was in estrous. Usually it triggers a flemen response where the male passes the scent across his Jacobson organ. This behaviour transfers pheromones and other scents into the vomeronasal organ located in the roof of the mouth. The pheromones in her urine provide chemical clues to the male about the state of the female.  Steenbok are also the only antelope to have toilet etiquette – they dig a hole in which they will urinate or defecate. This is probably because their territories are so small and to disguise their presence from predators.

Only the male Steenbok has the short, straight up horns. These small antelope are a beautiful golden brown colour, and have very distinctive, overly-large ears which look out of proportion to their heads. These are wary and somewhat shy small antelope but will eat anything from leaves and grasses to berries and seeds. The Steenbok, similar to duiker and oribi, have conspicuous black, facial glands which are situated in front of the large, dark brown eyes.  Pheromone-containing secretions from the preorbital gland may serve to establish an animal’s dominance when marking his territory. Males will mark off their territories with urine and secretions from the pre-orbital gland.

This is a view from one of our morning coffee lookouts. The green trees demarcate the river course.

A female Eland has spotted something. She has stopped in “mid-munch”. Although these are big formidable antelope, they make a bountiful meal for any lion which can bring one down. The female’s horns are wider set and thinner than the males’. Their senses are excellent and despite their size they are capable of jumping a considerable height. I have seen a large female easily jump over a six foot high mopani bush in her way.

Most Eland are very skittish and as soon as you get too close they are off. This was the last of four females down in the river bed. The other three had already made a “b-line” for the trees and bushes at the top of the bank.

Under one of the Mashatu trees, the foraging baboons must have dropped plenty of fruit which the kudu and impala were thoroughly enjoying. This is just another example of the interconnectness of life in the bush.

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”

~ Rachel Carson

We found a family of three Klipspringers, two parents and one sub-adult, walking across the dry riverbed. Being winter, they probably crossed the riverbed to look for food on the other side of the Majale river. 

I am always intrigued by Klipspringers as they look to be walking on tiptoes. They look like antelope, are called ‘rock jumpers’ in Afrikaans and are able to move around rocky outcrops like a mountain goat. Klipspringers form life-long pairs, each marking out a small territory. When one browses, its mate acts as sentry. If one partner spots danger it gives a piercing whistle to which the other mate quickly replies.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

~John Muir

The Klipspringer’s main predators are leopards, caracals and Black Eagles all of which are ambush hunters capable of working on rocky outcrops.

In southern Africa, only male Klipspringers have horns. Klipspringers have remarkable dense, coarse coats consisting of hollow hairs which rustle when shaken or touched. This helps insulate them on cold wintery rocky outcrops and cushions their bodies from any abrasion from sharp rocks. The coat varies in colour from yellow-brown to grey-yellow, with whitish underparts, chin and lips.

Klipspringers have specially adapted hoofs for living in their rocky territories. They stand, walk, leap, and land on their tiny hoof tips and look to be constantly on tip toe. Their hooves have the consistency of hard rubber, absorbing the shock of their huge leaps.

Two young bull giraffes testing each other’s strength. The incongruence of their size is countered by the coiling curves of their necks and vitality of their competitiveness.

Often the play fighting starts off reasonably tame but at times it can get quite rough where you can hear the thud as one hits the flank of another with its ossicones. Onlookers get the sense that these head bashes are very sore “lamies”. A giaffe’s head swung from quite a height can act as a serious battering ram.

I never grow tired of my trips to Mashatu. Each trip is different and each day is fascinating, bringing unexpected sightings and insights and the bush soothes my soul.

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
~ Joseph Campbell

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This the fourth post from a trip to Mashatu in July. As the title suggests, it is about birds seen in the area.  The bird life in Mashatu is diverse and prolific. This post takes the form of a gallery. 

” A great photograph is one which fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed”.

~ Ansel Adams

Female Namaqua Sandgrouse drinking from water in the rocks below the weir on the Matabole river.

Male Namaqua Sandgrouse in the same area.

Pied Kingfisher with its catch from one of the remaining pools of water in the Majale river.

” For me, the camera is a sketch book, and instrument of intuition and spontaneity.”

~ Henri Cartier Bresson

In the same pool of water was this Grey Heron. It was early morning with deep shadows and the light was catching the back of the heron.

Also in the same pool of water was this Hammerkop which was busy fishing, successfully.

“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”

~ Anonymous

Away from water, among the thorn trees, we first heard, then saw this pair of Crimson-breasted Shrikes. These shrikes are often heard first, then seen later, despite their vivid crimson breast colouring.

This pair was busy foraging for insects in a rocky section of the thornveld belt. The gorgeous crimson breast provides a vivid contrast to the browns and yellows in this winter dried area. If this bird only has its back toward you it is difficult to see, being pure black.

Pied Babblers are found in Mashatu. Like most babblers they move is small flocks and also provide a vivid contrast to the winter browns.

Further along the Majale we were watching a small family of elephants drinking water from one the remaining pools of water when we realised that there was a Saddle-billed stork fishing in the same pool.  

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
~ Elliott Erwitt

This was a male Saddle-billed Stork, identified by its black eye though I could not see its yellow wattle hanging from its throat.. Together with the Saddle-bill was this seldom seen Black Stork.

Driving through one of the many croton forests you will find many Long-tailed Starlings, African Hoopoes and many Laughing and Turtle doves.

We saw big flocks of Helmeted Guineafowl in Mashatu all foraging in the dust for seeds and insects. Along a  well-known bend in the Majale river where the White-fronted Bee-eaters usually build their nest in the river bank, we sat and watched many guineafowl fly from the river bank down to the edge of one of the many pools of water in  the river to drink.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
~ Marc Riboud

The blues of the water in the river below provided an unusual winter background for these flying guineafowl.

There were numerous Lilac-breasted Rollers in Mashatu. They hunt from a perch, flying down onto the ground to catch their insect prey.

These rollers can sit on their perches for longer than your patience lasts but every now and then one flies off to give you a chance to capture  the vivid  blues under its wings and lilac on its breast feathers.

I was amazed the at the massive flocks of Quelea in Mashatu during last winter. They move and feed in very large flocks of many thousands of birds. They feed on seed still on the dry grass stems and also seed lying on the sand on the ground. They tend to move as a dynamic whole which looks more like a perpetual relay.

“I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.”
~ Annie Leibovitz

In the evenings,  we were spellbound but the thousands and thousands of quelea flying back to their roosting area in groves of acacias close to the Limpopo river.  We watched wave after wave of these quelea flocks flying past us for about 45 minutes – one of nature’s spectacles.

I hope this small gallery gave you an impression of the abundance and variety of bird life in the Mashatu Nature Reserve. We also saw but did not photograph White-helmeted Shrikes, Martial Eagle, Tawny Eagle, White-fronted and Little Bee-eaters, Black Headed Orioles, Puff-backed Shrikes,  and Little Egrets to name just a few. There are a number of wonderful underground hides operated by C4 Photo Safaris which provide excellent opportunities for up-close animal and bird photography.

“My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.”
~ Steve McCurry

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This the third post from our mid-winter trip to Mashatu. The focus of this post is on a young leopardess.

“The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.”

~Eddie Rickenbacker

I am not sure how old she was but perhaps between two and three years of age. When we found her in the late afternoon she was lying in the shade in a croton forest. Her coat blended well with the grass and dead branches on the ground in the dappled light. In the late afternoon, we would often find a leopard had come down from its arboreal resting place, and was quietly gathering itself for its nightly excursion. This particular leopard would put her head down and rest and as soon as there was a distinctive sound she would come up and you could see her ears trying to locate the direction of the sound.

A closer look at this beautiful young female revealed some serious battle scars. Our guide Maifala told us that the tear on the right side of her face was sustained in a fight with her sister. The tear on her right side of her mouth rose from her lip half way up to her nose.  The cut had gone right through her lip exposing her teeth. She also appeared to  have had a tear on her nose, which had since healed. There are no doctors in nature you just have to sort yourself out and adapt.

After watching her for about half an hour she got up and started to wander along the river course, stopping on numerous occasions to pick up information from interesting scents.

Leopards are amazingly well camouflaged and they are dead quiet when walking. A leopard has black spots on its face, neck and legs but those spots transform into rosettes along the torso.  The inside of a leopard’s legs and its belly are white with black spots.

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
~ Adrienne Rich

Solitary and independent, she made her way through the trees and was highly tuned into everything around her. She stopped in her tracks trying to assess whether there was food or foe in front of her.

As the afternoon progressed the light softened which was an ideal time to shoot images of leopards. Leopards are predominantly solitary animals and have large hunting territories. Male territories are larger than females’ but they do overlap. Individuals usually only tolerate intrusion into ranges for mating. Both sexes mark their ranges with urine and leave claw marks with scent on trees to warn others to stay away.

Other than her torn lip she looked to be in fine condition and her coat looked clean and well cared for.

“The quieter you become the more you hear.”

~ Rumi

She was not walking with intention and after stopping, sitting and listening, she just lay down in the soft light. I am always surprised how thin a leopard’s torso appears when it lies down.

I am not sure whether it was our presence that was irritating her – it probably was.  As she snarled, you could see her right upper canine through the tear in her lip.

Having got up again she wandered closer to the river. I just loved the next scene with the late afternoon light filtering through the trees as she walked to the gap.

Eventually she got down to the edge of the Majale river and was watching a few Impala drinking from one of the remaining pools of water. Interesting, but too far away for good photos!

The next day we found her again. This time well away from the river in a thickly treed area. You do not often hear a leopard but when you do it is a grasping guttural coughing. It is distinctive and you will often hear it at last light or before the first glow has started to rise in the eastern morning sky. When you hear it you will be spellbound, it is unique and primal and you know you are in the presence of one of nature’s stealthiest hunters.

“Independence can neither be created nor destroyed just like energy! It can only be transferred from a fearless, resilient, intelligent & visionary “form” to another, regardless of what gender you are born with. It’s the energy that seeks to free your mind.”
~ Vishwanath S J

She stopped, at the base of what looked to be an Apple Leaf, in the only patch of sun in an otherwise shady area.

A few moments later she easily climbed the Apple Leaf and found a section of the bough that had a perfect resting curve. Leopards spend a lot of their time in trees. Their spotted pelage is perfect camouflage, helping them blend in with the leaves and branches of the tree. They are extremely powerful for their size and will usually hoist their prey high into a tree out of the way of lions and hyaenas. Leopards can hoist twice their body weight up a tree.

.

She seemed quite content to wait out the remaining daylight hours in her arboreal resting place, well away from attentions of wandering lions and hyenas. There did not seem to be any baboons in this area, so she was not disturbed.

“There is a way that nature speaks and the land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough or quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”

Lying like only a leopard can up in a tree. The bough for a pillow, front legs either side of the bough for balance and hind legs tucked underneath her body and tail hanging down – looking very relaxed.

Every now and then she would look up but it was clear she did not have a care in the world. She must have  been busy the previous night and now it was time to rest. Leopards are most active at night, but they are also eternal opportunists.

“Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.”

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A front paw also makes a soft pillow.

An iconic pose of a leopard – in harmony with her environment.

Leopards are classified as near threatened by the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. This listing is due to their declining population, which is caused by habitat loss and hunting.

“True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one’s true character, to be altogether one’s self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion.”

~Corliss Lamont

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

In this post I have focused on the dominant pride of lions in Mashatu. In July, it is mid-winter in the southern hemisphere and the mornings are crisp and the sky clear with wisps of small cloud. The Mopani trees sparkle, displaying their gold, orange and green leaves, and the morning sky glows. We made our way down to the Mashatu river upstream from the Matabole river along which  Eagle’s Nest camp is located.

“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
~ Leonora Carrington

“Just before dawn I have the world all to myself.”

~Terri Guillemets

It takes about half an hour to get down to the rivers from our camp. On the Reserve’s frequency radio, our guide, Maifala picked up the location of the lion cubs. We took a short cut along the river bed through the croton grove. It is indescribably beautiful along this route with not a sound to be heard, save the odd call from a Long-tailed Starling or Hoopoe. The thick grove of trees mute much of the sound creating a serene peaceful environment and driving through the cool dappled light is magical.

“The mountains are my bones, the rivers my veins,

The forests are my thoughts and the the stars my dreams,

The ocean is my heart, its pounding is my pulse,

The songs of the heart write the music of my soul.”

~Unknown

With a coded message and following the tracks of previous vehicles from the night before, we found the lion cubs. As can be expected with normal youngsters they do not stay put and want to explore. Fortunately they started to wander out of the shadows into the sun.

There were two groups of cubs in this playgroup, one litter was very new. There were no adults and they had obviously had their sleep and now the cubs wanted to play in the sun.

The cubs were curious about this “big beige thing” with a few large “eyes” peering at them (our vehicle with large camera lenses). It (and we) did not make a sound and it/we were not aggressive.

The cubs considered their options. The larger cubs took the lead. The smaller cub on the right hand side was so small that its belly almost scraped along the ground because its legs were so short.

Curiosity got the better of the cat!

Curiosity satisfied, the cubs started to wander off to look for their mothers. This is just the time when real problems can begin…..

The older and larger cubs ventured off first. Presumably they could smell which way their mothers had gone because they walked off in a specific direction.

A bold advance at first, but every now and then stopped for a “help me” meow.

It does not matter what size you are, you are still a lion!!!

“Have the will of a tiger, the speed of a cheetah, and the heart of a lion.”

~Kevin McCarty

The time had come for one of the lionesses to check up on the  nursery of cubs.

There must have been a smell or some tell-tale sign which this lioness was not happy with, which prompted her to start moving the cubs.

“I did not give you the gift of life. Life gave me the gift of you.”

~The Gottman Institute

I am always intrigued that the lioness’s jaw, which is powerful enough to suffocate a buffalo, can pick up and carry a very small cub for an extended distance without hurting it. I am not referring to a comfort carrier here. That cub intuitively knows to keep dead still and to be quiet.

We must have watched this lioness walk at least two hundred metres with this cub in her jaws.

She did not stop once to give herself or her cub a break. She would have done this for all her cubs which were too small to walk behind her for a reasonable distance.

We wondered where dad was and the next day we found him. This is one of the most handsome looking males I have ever seen and he has been around (in Mashatu) for over a year.

He was out patrolling his territory. The wind was blowing from his front and flattening his mane creating an even more powerful impression.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way .”

He did not walk in a straight line but seemed to wander along a scent trail through the trees and bushes.

This was one very big and powerful male lion in the prime of his young life and he walked with little to fear from anything.

“Greatness is not measured by money and stature but by courage and heart.”

Once he walked into a croton grove he slowed down to take in what must have been many interesting scents. Nothing threatening but the equivalent of social media without a tablet or phone.

I have used this image to show the lithe, brute strength of this male lion.

“Truth does not sit in a cave and hide like a lie. It wanders around proudly and roars loudly like a lion.”
~ Suzy Kassem

We were not allowed to get off the vehicle because the male was close by but that paw print was bigger than my outstretched hand.

In true lion fashion this male was marking his territory with his urine. His urine is laced with chemicals and would give any “scent seeker” a clear sense of his size, age and vigour and a clear sign that this is his territory.

It is moments like these that I am very happy to be on a vehicle and not alone on foot.

“Strength arises from silence. Strength arises from being heard.

Know when to speak. Know when to say nothing.”

~Pamela Leigh Richards

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

~Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

We spent a family week in Mashatu in mid-July. This and the next two posts will show some of the images from the few glorious days we spent in Mashatu Nature Reserve in the south east of Botswana in the Tuli Block area.

“For the 99 percent of the time we’ve been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine”.

~Janine M. Benyus

There are three main rivers flowing through Mashatu Nature Reserve, the Majale, Matabole and Pitsani. We often find animals in these river beds. In winter it is normally bone dry but the rains came late this year with good rains in April. This resulted in large pools of water remaining in along the river in July, which is when it is completely dry. Normally in winter the elephants will dig into the river bed to find water which in turn helps all the other animals and birds. The animals often congregate in the river  bed looking for water. During the day it was warm but not hot and it was chilly at night.

Anyone who has been to Mashatu will recognize this iconic Baobab above the banks of the Majale river. It is a youngster and has many centuries still to grow.

In the early morning light we found a large troop of Chacma baboons. They are very talkative and you can hear the troop “chemering” or chatting away to each other as come down from their tree top bedroom way up in the Mashatu trees. They climb to the upper parts of these massive tree to get away from predators at night. It was early morning so the angle of the light was low which enabled us to take some backlighting shots. This female had a youngster hanging underneath her.

One of the spritely teenagers dancing in the dust in the early morning light.

This female baboon was warming herself in the early morning sun and felt the need for a good scratch!

The troop we came across had many females with youngsters. The mothers are very attentive and the small babies do not leave their side.

“In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth”.

~John Milton

Further down the river, our guide Maifala, who has been  guiding in Mashatu for the last fifteen years, knows the area like the back of his hand. He weaved the vehicle through the croton forest until eventually we came out at the edge of the river. There were two female lions resting in the early morning sun lying in luxuriant grass on the bank above the river.

The two females obviously needed a break from the “kids”. One female was quietly grooming herself while the other was “out for the count”. That is a relative term when you talk about lions. Often they look fast asleep but the sound of a twig or branch cracking close by will wake them in an instant.

On the far side of the river bank (to the females)  was another troop of baboons who were making sure that everyone in the neighbourhood knew that there were lions in the area. The baboon  parading on the far side of the river bank, at the top of a steep bank, safe from harms way looked very funny. He would stomp around barking and jumping up and down on his front legs – though not very intimidating.

The troop leader would bark then throw mud clogs down the bank. The baboons made a real racket ensuring that the whole world knew that they had seen the predators.

Both lionesses had cubs. They were very active, no wonder the females need a break. Cuteness can be hard work!!

“The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature,–of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,–such health, such cheer, they afford forever!”

~Henry David Thoreau

The females had tucked these youngsters out of sight in a croton thicket. We managed to get into the thicket and they came out to play on a dead log in a small patch of open ground.

They were very playful and there is always one cub who is more inquisitive than the rest.

Not far from the lion cubs was this Steenbok foraging in a open piece of ground. They normally move around in pairs so the female must have been somewhere close by, but we just did not see her. Steenbok eat vegetation close to ground level and will also eat roots and tubers which they dig out with their sharp hooves.

At night most of the elephants seem to walk to higher ground and in the early mornings the family groups walk back down along well worn game trails to the rivers to feed on the lush vegetation and sate their thirst. These herds tend to walk in single file along the paths which is always exciting because we position the vehicle well ahead of them and they  walk up to, and past us. They kept an eye on us but seem very relaxed.  The procession was quiet and peaceful. It is quite humbling to have  herd of such large animals all within a few metres of you, walk past in peace.

It is always a privilege to get close to these wonderfully intelligence creatures. One cannot but sense the the “knowingness” behind those auburn eyes.

This family of Kudu were wandering along the Majale river bed. We did not see the family bull, just some of the females and a few youngsters. Those big ears are like radar scanners picking up every sound.

Further upstream the Majale we found three Kudu bulls which were browsing on the bushes as they wandered along.

You could see all three bulls were in prime condition. Adult bulls have two and a half twists in their spiral horns. I wonder what would happen when the came across females.

For such large antelope these Kudu bulls were very fast and could easily jump what I thought were quite wide gullies. These browsers still had plenty of vegetation to eat even in winter.

We stopped to watch a herd of impala crossing the river bed. Although there are plenty of Impala around you never know what you might see. This young male stopped to have a look at us. His age is given away by his short straight horns which will grow to be substantial and have one major twist in them when he is an adult.

Baboons and Impala are often found together as the Impala eat the fallen fruit and flowers which the baboons drop when feeding the in the Mashatu and other trees. Despite the very stoney river bed this baboon had no trouble running fast across the riverbed.

This was a big but young male warthog. He was wandering around foraging on his own. Much like pigs they use their snout and tusks to help them dig out roots and tubers during the dry season. He looked very confident but stuck to the open areas so he did not get surprised by a predator.

“Away from the tumult of motor and mill
I want to be care-free; I want to be
still!
I’m weary of doing things; weary of
words
I want to be one with the blossoms
and birds”.

~Edgar A. Guest

I just liked this image of a Fork-tailed Drongo perched on a jutting branch with an elephant in the background. This little character was hawking insects disturbed by the elephants.

A pair of tree squirrels sunning themselves in the winter morning sun. They also groom each other which helps disperse their common scent. Tree squirrels are highly territorial.

It was quite remarkable to see these little tree squirrels spreadeagled on a steeply sloping tree trunk. These squirrels were very alert and would often chirp when they sensed danger from either the ground or the air.

The ubiquitous and inevitable Lilac-breasted Roller. I can never resist taking a shot of these beautifully colored birds.This one was hawking insects from its perch.

The Lilac-breasted Roller is even more striking in flight.

At the end of our first day we found the cheetah mum and her four (almost adult) cubs. It was getting quite dark and thankfully my trusty Nikon had excellent low light capability.

“To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long…”

~John Moffitt

This group of four Cheetahs were hunting along Mashatu’s M1. They were hunting Impala.

The Cheetah mum was the lead hunter with her four youngsters as backup.

By the time they found a herd of Impala and started their chase it was too dark, and my shutter speeds were too low. It was the most incredible sound to hear this herd of Impala snorting and dashing across the stoney ground to escape the Cheetahs. The Impala all got away – this time.

At last light along the M1 as it is called in Mashatu. This is the road that leads from the border post to Mashatu Main Camp. This is the time we normally stop and have sundowners to enjoy the setting sun and the spectacularly colorful show signaling the end of another day in Africa.

“If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat”.

~Vijali Hamilton

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is the last post from a wonderful  ten-day trip with Andrew Beck and Sammy from Wild Eye. I thought Masai Mara and Serengeti were fantastic places for a wildlife photographer to visit, but Amboseli and Tsavo West have added another dimension to fantastic.

“We eat light, drink it in through our skins. With a little more exposure to light, you feel part of things physically. I like feeling the power of light and space physically because then you can order it materially. Seeing is a very sensuous act–there’s a sweet deliciousness to feeling yourself see something.”
~ James Turrell

The Oryx are different in this part of the world. The Fringe-eared Oryx is listed as near threatened on the IUCN red list of threatened species.  Oryx is a genus consisting of four large antelope species. Three of them are native to arid parts of Africa, and the fourth to the Arabian Peninsula. The next image is of a Fringe-eared Oryx. It is fawn coloured and it does not have the same degree of  black on its legs as a Gemsbok. Fringe-eared Oryx are found only in south-eastern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania.  The Tana river in Kenya divides the ranges of the Fringe-eared and Beisa Oryx, with the Fringe-eared being below the Tana river in Kenya. 

The Fringe-eared Oryx has the same markings on its face as a Gemsbok, with black and white markings and a black stripe which runs from its ear through its eye down to its chin. It also has fawn colouring on its lower legs and hocks whereas the Gemsbok has  black and white lower legs and black hocks. I often wonder why these animals have different markings and I wonder whether the environment dictates whether they should reflect or absorb light and heat – just thinking. 

A handsome male Lesser Kudu. The Lesser Kudu is native to Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, but it is extinct in Djibouti. the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rates the Lesser Kudu as “Near Threatened”. Horns are present only on males. The spiral horns are 50–70 cm long, and have two to two-and-a-half twists, the same number of twists as the greater Kudu.

“The first act of awe, when man was struck with the beauty or wonder of Nature, was the first spiritual experience.”
~ Henryk Skolimowski

I have converted this image to black and white and emphasised the  colour sliders to bring out the Kudu. In colour, this Kudu is remarkably well camouflaged.

A Purple Roller is also called the Rufous-crowned Roller, is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa to as far south as Namibia and the South Africa. Compared with other rollers, its colours are rather dull and its voice harsh and grating. It prefers the dry thorn veld and can spend long periods perched at the top of thorn trees, watching for prey on the ground such as insects, spiders, scorpions and small lizards.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
~ Albert Einstein

It is only when a Purple Roller takes flight do you really get to see its mauves and purples. There are two genera and 11 species of roller. Thankfully the conservation status of this species is of least concern but that does not mean that you see them often. This is only the fourth time I have seen a Purple Roller. Rollers get their name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. We did not see them performing this time but their rolling displays are spectacular, I have only seen Lilac-breasted Rollers doing these rolling displays!!. 

At the top of the valley looking down from a high tree, this Martial Eagle was intently watching all the goings on in the valley below. You could not see its eye colour but the Martial adult has a deep orange coloured eye. This was a juvenile as the adults have a dark brown head, shoulders and neck colouring. The breast and belly feathers are white with dark brown spots.Even this independent juvenile with take prey which ranges from dik-diks to Guineafowl and even monitor lizards. This is the largest bird of prey in Africa, with a wingspan of up to 260 cm and a maximum weight of 6.2 kilogrammes

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
~ Anaïs Nin

Further down the valley we saw what at first I thought this was a Tawny Eagle, but the shape of its head and the deep gape makes me think this was a Steppe Eagle. It was probably an almost fully fledged adult but its colouring is not yet the  overall, dark chocolate-brown of the mature adult.

Down in the valley, a landscape view showing you the rugged terrain in this part of Tsavo West.

A pair of Egyptian Geese down in the valley close to the elephant carcass. We saw  pairs  close to the scattered waterholes but there were not nearly as many as we usually see in town. 

I could not believe these Egyptian Geese mated and washed in this foul-smelling, stagnant water. This male did not seem to be fussed.

Early on our last morning we found two lionesses down near the elephant carcass. The male and two females had been feeding on the carcass for a few days and it was starting to get “ripe”.

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
~ Betty Smith

A Baobab tree with buffalo weaver nests hanging from its branches with Tsavo’s volcanic mountains as a backdrop.

This large bull elephant was wandering down to our favourite series of dams to drink and get more closely acquainted with the females.

Paddling with the big guys, enough to give you goose bumps!

Early morning game drive down in the Tsavo valley. The light was beaming in shafts through the trees creating spots of warm radiance. Andrew kept encouraging us to look and look some more and we would see. This image is of paper-thin bark and spiders webs illuminated by the early morning light.

“Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.”
~ Carlos Castaneda

Back lighting a spider’s web in an acacia bush.

Another first, a Black-headed Lapwing which has a familiar wispy black crest on the back of its head like a northern Lapwing. It has very clear black and white markings on its face, its bill is reddish pink and its eye is yellow with a black iris.It likes dry plains with bare or with short grass, and dry woodland. It feeds mainly on insects.

One very relaxed female leopard wandering across the sand road in front of us. You can see from the long morning shadows that it was still early. If you can’t get front lighting then get rim-lighting creating a silhouette.

“But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything?”
~ Margaret Atwood

This young female leopard stopped on the ridge to have a good look around. This is obviously her territory but she shares it with lions so it seemed infinitely reasonable to have a good look around before wandering on. There were plenty of trees for her to climb if she needed a quick escape.

Looking in the opposite direct to the leopard was this noisy Crested Francolin who was busy telling everyone where we were or perhaps where the leopard was whilst pecking grass seeds from the sand.

“The finest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”
~ Albert Einstein

This young leopard decided to climb an acacia to get into a better lookout position. She must have seen something off to our left because she stared intently at it for about five minutes before relaxing on the fork of the tree. We could not see what caught her attention but it could have been a dik-dik and there were many in this area.

She kept an eye on us to make sure that we did not move.

She lay down and moulded herself on the bough of the tree, looking alert but relaxed knowing that no lion would be able to follow her up that tree.

In our last afternoon we watched this  lone bull elephant walking through this warm saturated colour palette.

“No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.”
~ Elizabeth Bowen

Success at sunset, a Hammerkop with supper.

A Black Crake silhouetted against the reflection of the fading evening light.

A winter sunset in Tsavo West from down in the valley.

“Dreams, memories, the sacred–they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”
~ Yukio Mishima

Another big thank you to Andrew Beck and Jimmy from Wild Eye for a wonderful trip to Amboseli and Tsavo West. This is a diverse and spellbinding part of the world and for a wildlife photographer you can’t wait to get up and get out in the bush each morning. The trip was punctuated by unusual sightings and many firsts for both mammals and birds.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is my third post on our trip to Tsavo West. Usually we were out at first light but this post starts later in the day.

“A spirituality founded in the pursuit of truth is one that should be able to adapt with changes in knowledge. Better yet, it is one that gains in value with increases in knowledge. As it turns out, the more we learn about the nature of existence, the greater and more impressive its mysteries become”.

~Guy Tal

There were large flocks of queleas flying back and forth across the two waterholes in front of the Kilaguni Lodge. These large flocks make quite a noise en mass when flying down to drink at a waterhole. Certainly enough noise to scare a zebra stallion.

There was an abundance of bird life in front of the lodge down near the waterholes. There were many Von der Decken’s Hornbills around the lodge.

We also saw many White-bellied Go-away birds in front of the lodge displaying all the usual antics of go-away birds like chasing each other between and inside trees and bushes.

“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean”.
~ John Muir

As we started to venture further away from the lodge all sorts of opportunities opened up. On our way out of the lodge we found this Grey-headed Kingfisher who was very intent on its insect hunting.

Usually the dik-diks move around in thick grass so it is worth stopping when a Kirk’s dik-dik is walking and foraging in the open. These are such small delicate antelope. That big black patch just under its eye is a scent gland which it uses to mark pieces of stems of grass and small bushes. There must have been an interesting scent which caught this Kirk’s dik-dik’s attention.

Next to the road  we found this Black-faced sandgrouse which had been foraging for seeds in the sand. It was very wary but sat tight.

This Black-faced sandgrouse walked around but stayed in more or less the same place and gave us an opportunity to get quite a few decent shots. I always marvel at the colouring of sandgrouse. Their backs are cryptically coloured making them very difficult to see from above but their fronts are much more exotic and distinctive. If this bird puts its head down you will never see it.

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive”. 

~ Eleonora Duse

Further down the bumpy road into the valley we found this Golden-breasted Starling.  We really tried to get a decent image of this character but it was having none of it.

This is a stunningly beautiful bird, the Golden-breasted Starling, but like many good looking beings remains aloof.

This female Bateleur Eagle had not got her full adult dark plumage. I figured it was a female looking at the greyish band of secondary feathers on its wing, unlike the male which has all black secondaries. The male has a thick black trailing edge on the underside of the primaries and the female a thin black trailing edge on the underside of  its primaries.

 Short maned male Tsavo lion.  This was the young female elephant which had died from an infection from a poachers spear. This big male lion was strong enough to open up the carcass.

“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing”.

 ~ Jean Cocteau

Down in the thicker woodland areas were found many Lesser Kudu. These were always special sightings, especially for a southern African resident. These little Kudu cousins are quite different to their larger southern cousins, size wise they are much smaller and it has conspicuous white patches on the upper and lower parts of the neck and does not have a neck fringe.

Juvenile Eastern Charting Goshawk. We never drive past a sighting like this. Even though it might not be a perfect pose, we wait for it to change position into a better pose. Often waiting for the change of pose is just wishful thinking.

This Eastern Chanting Goshawk soon got bored with us dominating its view and flew off so it could concentrate on the matter of hunting.

The Lesser Kudu is quite different to the greater Kudu. It has a broad white stripe down its back and its has distinct whites stripes which run down across its stomach and hand quarters. The Lesser Kudu has white eye rings and no white band between its eyes. It has those distinct large Kudu ears and a ridge of hair along its spine.  

Sparring giraffe down near the series of waterholes. This became a favourite spot. These youngsters started reasonably gently but got progressively more aggressive, but all ended well. They were just testing each other.

Down on the valley floor looking west to the volcanic hills

Most of the buffalo took no notice of us but there was always one which watched us carefully.  The sentry was usually a buffalo cow.

This was a herd of buffalo which we estimated to have included more than 300 animals.

At times, sections of the herd got spooked by something we could not see and once the thundering hooves got moving they threw up plenty of red dust and scattered the oxpeckers.

Impressive vista – an African privilege – space, big skies and abundant wildlife.

A small family herd of elephant came down to drink at the series of waterholes along the river course

Black and white treatments provide drama to the otherwise peaceful scene around the waterhole

In the late afternoon, the colours were saturated. The scene was peaceful and each individual walked quietly to the water’s edge.

It was warm and not especially hot but this family group of elephants were really enjoying sating their thirst. The light was saturated, the colours rich and the scene peaceful. There was a sense of rich harmony.

I could not resist taking a few shots of the reflections of the elephants on the surface of the water. It was a quiet time with these large animals sating their thirst and was probably a time of quiet mediation for them too.

Golden reflections paint colours and shapes of the elephant but reveal nothing of the experiences this elephant has had during the day.

We were so absorbed watching the elephants and buffaloes down at the waterhole that we did not see this young female leopard had killed, what we think was, a dik-dik.

“Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul”.

~ Alexander Pope

Not only had she killed the dik-dik without spooking or attracting the attention of the buffaloes but she had almost finished eating it right under their noses. The only way we found out about her was when another game vehicle arrived behind us and radioed to tell us to look around and have a look at this leopard feeding on a kill about thirty metres behind us higher up the slope.

This young female leopard blended beautifully into the grass. Only when she moved and lifted her head could we see her.

Having fed well she wandered down to river stopping a ridge of rock to have a look around. I find it very interesting the these animals do not show any haste. They are stealthy and very aware of everything around them. In this state, they stop frequently to look, smell and listen.

The photography is more difficult in Tsavo West because of the thick woodlands. Nevertheless, the quality of sightings and very different species compared with those in southern Africa make it an intriguing destination. It makes you realise that Africa is a continent with an incredible diversity of wildlife. more than enough to keep you occupied for a lifetime.

“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty”.

~ John Muir

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

We set off early on our third morning in Tsavo West to explore Mzima springs. This was only the second day in eight that I saw Mount Kilimanjaro’s peak. We were travelling north-west from the Kilaguni lodge to Mzima springs when our vehicle’s right rear tyre was punctured so we had to stop and repair it. When I say we, in fact Sammy who knew exactly what to do, fixed it, and in no time we were pneumatically restored and on our way.

“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

Although not a great image, the next image shows the graduations of light and colour stretching through the valley to the first range of hills and further to “Mount Kili” about 40 kilometres away. It also showed one of the few large open stretches of woodland savanna in what is a mountainous area.

It was still reasonably early in the morning and looking east into the sun we got some wonderful moody images of zebras walking through the golden flecked grass and with mist in the trees behind them. This has got to be one of the magic aspects about photography, when you realise that the light is golden and dancing and try to catch it.

“We wander for distraction but we travel for fulfillment”

~Hilaire Belloc

The zebras all walked in single file through the grass,  in strict hierarchy – as they do.

Mzima  usually refers to the body’s state of health and well-being, literally meaning “full” or “whole.” It is an apt name for Mzima springs because it is an  verdant oasis in the hot, dry, dusty bush. In the neighbouring Chyulu Range stand porous peaks of volcanic ash, whose youngest cones were formed about 500 years ago. Rising 2,000 metres above a dry woodland plain, these hills trap up to a metre of rain each year from moisture-laden winds. All that rain soaks into the sponge-like ash and percolates down until it hits impervious bedrock and begins its underground journey to Mzima Springs. 

“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” 

~ Martin Luther

The Chyulu range is composed of volcanic lava rock and ash, which is too porous to allow rivers to flow. Instead, rain water percolates through the rock, and is thought to spend many years underground before emerging 50 kilometres away at Mzima springs. Filtered over many years, the pure water gushes forth at a steady pace of more than 200 million litres a day, creating this oasis at the heart of Tsavo West National Park. The natural filtration process gives rise to Mzima’s famously clear stream, which flows through a series of pools connected by streams washing boulders to form rapids. You can see just how clear the water is as you can see the hippo’s body and legs quite clearly under the water.

Two kilometres downstream from the springs, the stream is blocked by a solidified lava flow and disappears below the surface again.

In one of Mzima’s pools this Reed Cormorant stopped for a break on a fallen tree trunk and was shaking water off its feathers. I would imagine it is quite difficult for the cormorants to hunt in such clear water but this character looked to be having a very busy time.

The area immediately around the springs and pools is verdant. The grass is thick, lush and green, and there are a variety of palm trees and many Fever trees. I find the colour combinations on the trunks of Fever trees fascinating. It is the only tree, I know of, which at maturity has a green trunk.

“What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?”

~ Pablo Neruda

There are numerous paths which traverse one side of the pools. The paths guide bush lovers through the forested area in Mzima and follow old hippo trails.

“What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in, whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain future that is unfolding.”

~ Jim Robbins

In one of the pools is an observation hut. It is a semi-submerged viewing hut where you can view hippos, crocodiles and fish underwater. Being semi-submerged makes it more interesting  because to get to see what is going on above and below the water level. We were hoping to see crocs and hippos under the water but only got to see what looked to be a type of carp. You get a real sense of a diverse integrated ecosystem above and below the water level.  I tried to take some images through the see-through glass of the submerged hut of the fish swimming around, but my focus was not up to scratch. This was one of the two large pools at Mzima spring which are connected by a babbling stream, fringed with lush reeds.

In the shade in the verdant oasis it is bursting with life, beautiful and tranquil – a break from the dust and heat of Tsavo. A family of Sykes’ monkeys seemed to agree with us.

Sykes’ monkey is also known as the white-throated monkey or Samango monkey. Thankfully this species has a ‘ least concern’ conservation status. Their coats are mainly a dark grey, the hair on their tail, limbs and shoulders is almost black and they have a brownish-yellow tinge to the hair on their back, face and top of their heads. Their white moustaches make them look old but they have large inquiring auburn-coloured eyes, and a flattened nose.

“There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.”

~Albert Einstein

Sykes’ monkeys are semi-arboreal, semi-terrestrial and are therefore comfortable in both in the trees and on the ground. While we were wandering through the forested area around the springs they were playing and feeding on vegetation on the ground. Their main diet comprises  shoots, fruits, leaves, flowers and berries, but they will eat eggs and insects when they can find them. 

There were lots of species of wild flowers which attracted many types of flies, beetles, bees and butterflies. After hunting around a bit I think this might be a butterfly called an African Golden Arab, drinking nectar from a Wort Club (http://www.ngkenya.com/flora/plants.html).

Along the paths there were many what I think were Turbinas sprawling over the other vegetation. These flowers were a magnet for insects of all kinds.

All the insects buzzing around the multitude of flowers were in turn a magnet for the lizards like this agama.

Mzima springs was a unique place to visit, like nothing I have ever seen before. It was just busting with life.

“Walk tall as the trees, live strong as the mountains, be gentle as the spring winds, keep the warmth of the summer sun in your heart and the great spirit will always be with you.” 

~ Native American proverb

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

After a wonderful five days in Amboseli, we drove to Tsavo West National Park. The road trip took around four hours (around 150kms on mostly dirt roads). Tsavo West and Tsavo East were once one large park. It was split into two by the construction of the railway line which was routed from Mombasa to the interior of Kenya. The park is located equidistant between Nairobi and Mombasa.

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

~Bruce Lee

Our Wild-Eye guide, Andrew Beck told us these two parks have quite different eco-systems. The slightly larger Tsavo East is generally flat with dry plains across which the Galana River flows. By contrast, Tsavo West National Park has much more wooded, hilly landscapes, and is dotted with volcanic cones and stark black lava flows.

As we entered Tsavo West, Andrew suggested to us that we were in for an unusual couple of days. Unusual because of the landscapes, wildlife and birds, all of which were going to be quite different to those in Amboseli.

” A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr

Tsavo is known for its “ghosts in the darkness”, those two infamous man-eating lions. Tsavo males look different to the Mara and Serengeti lions. The most vigorous Serengeti males grow large dark manes, while in Tsavo they have short, thin manes or none at all. The thinking is that the thickness of the manes has much to do with access to water. Tsavo is hotter and drier than the Serengeti. A male lion with a thick mane “would squander his daily water allowance simply panting under a bush, with none to spare for patrolling his territory, hunting or finding mates”, according to Patterson. – ”http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/man-eaters-of-tsavo-11614317/

In 1898, the infamous two male lions were believed to have killed, most of whom were eaten, between 120 and 140 construction workers who were  builing a bridge over the Tsavo River as part of the Uganda railway line from Mombasa to Lake Victoria in Uganda. The man-eating took place  until John Henry Patterson, a military officer working on the railway line,  hunted them down and stopped the man-eating spree.

With these stories swimming in our thoughts we entered Tsavo West National Park at the Chyulu gate in the north west of the park. We had just driven through the Tsavo West entrance when we came across a pair of White-bellied Korhaans. This was sign of interesting sightings to come.

Tsavo West National Park, covers an area of just over 9,000 sq. km. This park has wide savannah plains, hilly landscapes, lava flows, springs, large permanent rivers and its southern boundary is the border with Tanzania.

“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience”.
~Oliver Wendall Holmes

About four kilometres west of the Chyulu gate inside Tsavo West National Park are the Shetani lava flows. ‘Shetani ’ means ‘devil’ in Kiswahili. These flows occurred a few hundred years ago and local peoples believed that it was the devil himself emerging from the earth. This vast expanse of folded black lava spread across the savannah at the foot of the Chyulu Hills. These larva flows are a reminder that as old as this area is some of the tectonic activity was recent.

The Shetani Lava Flow is a black lava expanse eight kilometres long, 1.6 kilometres wide and averages five meters deep. We walked over the hardened larva flow. Its surface was very hard and jagged. We did not see any animals on this dark stark landscape for very good reason. The surface was hostile for any living thing with just the odd tree and tuft of grass or creeper managing to gain its footing. Perhaps sufficient dust had gathered into pockets in the larva to sustain this limited flora.

The last major eruption in this area is believed to have taken place around 200  and 240 years ago, a fraction of a second in geological terms.

“Knowledge gained through experience is far superior and many times more useful than bookish knowledge.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

Sammy, our driver and guide – a man with a great sense of humour, excellent knowledge of the parks and their wildlife and birdlife,  and a man with eagle eyes.

This larva flow was like nothing I had ever seen before. Very interesting and different but I have to admit I prefer savannah, woodlands and sand roads.

The entrance to the Kilaguni Serena lodge. This is one of the oldest lodges in Kenya and still well cared for.

As we walked through the entrance onto the veranda, we looked out onto an incredible view of the Chyulu Hills.

Directly in front of the lodge were two waterholes and the area was covered in red soil. The animals also took on this red colour. The elephants and zebra were noticeably red.

Southern White-crowned Shrike minding its own business on the side of the road. I find it quite incredible that some five thousand kilometres north of South Africa you will find the same birds – adaptive, genetic survivors. The fact they have not changed shape or colour tells me there is something about these birds which enables them to move around a continent intact.

“Experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.”
~William Shakespeare

We were starting to get a sense of the unusual landscapes in this park, when we got our first of many firsts, a lesser Kudu. The lesser Kudu has a single white stripe running down its back and white stripes running off this central stripe down the sides. The males do not have the bearded neck. Instead their neck is a plain dark grey-brown colour with two white  horizontal stripes. The horns and shape of the lesser Kudu are similar to their larger cousin but the Lesser Kudu is around two-thirds the size of a Greater Kudu which we see frequently in southern Africa and is closely related to the Nyala. It feeds primarily at dusk and dawn, and is a mainly a browser eating leaves, shrubs, twigs but will also eat grasses, herbs and roots. The Lesser Kudu has adapted to hydrating from the moisture collected in leaves.  

The next image is of one of the volcanic rock outcrops we saw on the way down onto the river valley floor. We were half expecting to see a large raptor sitting on a prominent rock or a Klipspringer looking down at us.

This Black-backed Jackal was scavenging something on the black larva soil when it looked up to see what we were doing.

We then travelled south-west of the lodge into a very mountainous area. On the way we found this unusually dark male Masai Giraffe. Giraffes’ “pelage” varies in colour with age, usually the spots change from sienna-brown in the young to coal- black blotches in the old. Another way to get a sense of their age is to look at how worn their ossicones are and how big the bone protrudence is on the males forehead.

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”
~ Frank Herbert

After an interesting and bumpy drive down into the valley, we found a young female elephant lying on the ground. After seeing so many elephants sleeping in Amboseli, we thought this elephant was just resting. Unfortunately, we found out later that she had died from wounds from a poacher’s spear, which had become infected. There are no doctors in the bush!!!! 

Down in the river below the fallen girl elephant was this “lightning bird” or Hammerkop.  The lightning bird is a mythological creature in the folklore of the tribes of South Africa. The impundulu (which translates as “lightning bird”) takes the form of a black and white bird, the size of a person, which is said to summon thunder and lightning with its wings and talons. With a little luck that thunder and lightning will be directed at that poacher!!!

We found d’Arnaud’s Barbet in the undergrowth down near the river, waving its tail and noisily trilling.

The Hornbills were also different in this part of the world. This was a Von der Decken’s Hornbill.

“All your life you’re yellow. Then one day you brush up against something blue, the barest touch, and voila, the rest of your life you’re green.”
~ Tess Callahan

Another first, this was a gorgeous Golden Breasted Starling. This was a male, the female looks similar but her head and shoulders are much duller.

We desperately tried to get closer to get a better shot but this wiley bird kept its distance.

Yet another first was this Kirk’s dik-dik. This is a small antelope much like a duiker but it has a prehensile nose. This particular character was a male as the female does not have horns. Dik-diks are some of the world’s smallest antelopes. The largest of the group is the Kirk’s dik-dik, standing between 14 and 18 inches tall and weighing no more than 7.2 kg. The dik-dik has a hairy proboscis with tiny slit-like nostrils. This proboscis contains an enlarged nasal chamber which is supplied with a rich amount of blood that is cooled via rapid nasal panting.

A dik-dik would make an easy meal for this young Martial Eagle, only it was  much further down the river near a large herd of buffalo.

Down on the valley floor we were watching a large herd of buffalo around a waterhole as more and more buffalo streamed in along the valley floor for a drink of water and to join the herd.

“To my mind the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted”.

~Bill Bryson

Even the go-away birds are different in this part of the world. This was a White-bellied Go-away bird. There were many in the park and they behaved just like our Grey Louries.

Some familiar faces, this pair of Egyptian geese and their five goslings were waddling away from the small waterhole to a safer place away from the multitude of black legs.

Also looking for a drink at the waterhole were a small herd of Coke’s Hartebeest.

The pelage pattern of a Masai giraffe. There are nine different pelage patterns of the giraffe in Africa. Each has a distinct pattern and colour according to its specific geographic location.

I cringe just looking at this male Masai giraffe wrapping its tongue around these acacia  leaves and thorns.

This was the gathering herd of buffalo down at one of the small dams along the valley floor. I converted to image to black and white to tease out the drama of the gathering herd.

The heavy cumulus clouds added to the drama of the waterhole setting. Further drama was added by the knowledge that where there are buffalo there are sure to be lions.

“The purpose of life is to live it, taste experience to its utmost, to reach out eagerly without fear for a newer  and richer experience.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike